224 HAMHAMMO. 
a few hundred yards only from the stream. (Thermometer 81°.) 
Course about nine miles south-west. 
Here we were joined by two Abyssinian chiefs, Baharnegash 
Isge and Kantiba Ammon, who had received instructions from the 
Ras to take charge of our baggage as far up as Taranta ; and the 
former, as he told me, had orders from the Ras to attend us to 
Antalo. At this station the Nayib's people and the Hazorta began 
to exercise our patience, but our party was too strong for them to 
give us any very serious annoyance, and, as I consequently felt 
assured of our security, I received considerable amusement from 
the study of their characters. Among the Hazorta, Shum 
Hummar took the lead. He was a tall raw-boned man, of a loose 
scambling gait, and seemed to possess a very strange compound 
of character. He was obsequious and mean in the extreme, yet 
occasionally became imperious, overbearing and haughty. He 
would fawn upon any one, like the basest sycophant, for the sake 
of a dollar ; yet, even among his equals, his conversation con- 
sisted almost entirely in an ostentatious display of his own per- 
sonal merits. " I am a ruler,'' " a governor,'' " a king," " a 
lion in battle," " my strength is equal to that of an elephant/' 
were the phrases he commonly made use of, and these were uttered 
with wild and insolent gestures, that evinced, at least, his own 
belief in the assertions. Mr. Pearce bore this behaviour with 
tolerable patience for the first two days, regarding him generally 
with a sort of sullen contempt, but, at this place, on his proceed- 
ing still further, and comparing himself to Ras Welled Selasse, 
Mr. Pearce started up, seized his spear and shield, and placing 
himself in an attitude of defiance, told him, that he was not 
